Guild Wars 2

Hi!

I´m r40 engi (spvp) I know how to play and I really think enginers is a strong class I would even go as far as Overpowered. But engis really lack a role in WvW…and here is why:

Engis is a Midrange combatclass that relie on Conditions and CC to win the fights.

In WvW single target CC dont matter and engis dont have the natural sustain to be in midfight using thier original 1-5 or bombkit. The WvW meta is about big groups of players zerging from one point to another.

So the only option left for enginers are longrange dmg…the best and only viable build is one involving Grenadekit…BUT its not viable vs Good group of enemies and here is WHY!

Retaliation…I run full rabid gear HgH elixer and nadekit. Each time I throw ONE autoattack with grenade or use a grenadekit skill I throw 3 grenades…each grenade hits 5 x3 ppl gets a total of 15 targets effected by dmg…

A good “Zerg” buffs up berfore goin in…giving AOE retaliation to everyone…So ea time I use a grenadekit skill I take 15 retaliation dmg….thats 3-4k dmg I take in retaliation for ONE attack…its simply makes the only viable enginer build useless……… After you casted 2-4-5 you lost 50% of your hp and the enemie havent even reached you yet. If you use your Grenade barrage 8 grenades x 5 targets for ea grenade that is 40 retaliation dmg thats 8-12k dmg in retaliation from that one skill that …thats half your health in one attack…fun?

I´m not a gamedesigner but I can see the problem here…Can you??

Suggestions…set a max cap of retaliation dmg for ea attack.

Count a grenade attack as one attack giving 5 retaliation dmg instead of 15 (this means you need to fix so grenades goes through bodys so the only deals dmg when they touch the ground meaning you cant bodyblock a grenade and blocking 3 grenades without dmging the ones next to you (even if you block the dmg other around you take splash dmg).

I still have hope in you arena net even if I really wanted to quit the game after you removed 8 teams tourneys giving ous 2 hotjoin pubgames and none tourney matchmaking to speak of

I know my spelling is poor but I dont care aslong as the messege get through =)

My biggest bane is retal, even in tourneys. We take the most retal damage in the game by a massive margin. It’s unrivaled how many attacks we put out.

@Fubar

I’m so with you on this. Even a grenadier vs a retaliation guardian is a pain, I usually have to switch to bomb kit just for the fight. But that’s ok, because it’s how retaliation is balanced.

But again zerg group, where everyone has retaliation, it is a pain. Zerg have perma-retaliation, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Same thing with the flame thrower. Over the 2.5 sec channel, you can hit 3 people for 10 time each. So you suffer from 30 tick from retaliation.

I agree that retaliation is a problem for high damage output builds, yet consider that if you are running zerg v. zerg in WvWvW, damage happens due to the zerg. It’s more important that you can stay standing up in a fight.

Was just in a tourney and got in a quick 1v2 by mistake, a mes and an engi. It didn’t last long, maybe 15 seconds. I felt I dodged well and avoided every burst while landing almost every skill of my own. Death breakdown? 8200+ damage from retal…

Boon-hate is coming, but for now Throw Mine is your best friend in combating retaliation. Remember that the tool-belt skill also removes boons, as well.

Solution for this would be nerfing grenade kits damage so it wont hurt engineer so bad.

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Boon-hate is coming, but for now Throw Mine is your best friend in combating retaliation. Remember that the tool-belt skill also removes boons, as well.

I’m pretty sure that’s gonna hurt our damage more than theirs ;_;

Retal really needs to be rebalanced in the extreme cases. Grenades and Flamethrower are the extremes, I cannot fathom how it’s possible to balance the difference of an average damage output of Retaliation compared to taking something like 15 ticks of it in a second.

Honestly I’d rather have Retaliation rebalanced to work as an intensity boon. Each time someone takes Retal damage they remove a charge. Then you know how much damage the Retal is going to put out and you don’t get these extreme cases where a Guardian ends up causing over 16k damage to one person and a mere 500 to another. It still means multi-hits eat up the charges quicker and retain their vulnerability in that way, but it curbs the cap.

ikiturso.4026:

Solution for this would be nerfing grenade kits damage so it wont hurt engineer so bad.

That’s the problem—retaliation does not return damage based on how powerful an attack is. If a guard with retal on gets hit by explosive shot for 250 damage, he’ll return about 200-300 damage back from retaliation (based on guardian’s power stat). He’ll return the same 200-300 damage if he gets hit by a 7k killshot. He’ll return 200-300 damage 8 times if he gets hit by grenade barrage, or somewhere around 2000 damage. If someone has the misfortune to use flamethrower, he would receive retaliation damage 10 times.

The effect is multiplied when hitting multiple targets, of course. Throwing one grenade barrage into a zerg in WvW could potentially hit you for somewhere around 12000 damage from retaliation.

Yea, I’ve been killed throwing grenades into zergs by retal ONLY. It’s the worst feeling in the world watching your grenades slowly fly to your target knowing that your own impending doom is about to happen.

Also, I think retal has a reduction similar to confusion in SPvP. I think it might do more damage in WvW than in structured, but it could just be the ridiculously inflated stats (I’ve had 3400 power in WvW, lolol)

Retaliation can hit you hard if you’re using the Grenade Kit or Flamethrower. You just have to be mindful of this. It’s a very effective “check” against runaway AoE DPS. I think they should leave it as it is.

You can be mindful about it, but mostly every zerg now have perma AoE retaliation from combo field and guardian.

Kardiamond.6952:

You can be mindful about it, but mostly every zerg now have perma AoE retaliation from combo field and guardian.

Right, that’s essentially the issue of it. I don’t mind having to look for a boon before attacking (although something with 2 hit KO potential could stand a bigger tell). The issue is that it’s just on a lot of the time. It’s not permanent most of the time and not many people build around it, but at the same time it’s not really used as a counter (like aegis), it’s just kind of a damage add. Only it adds a few hundred dps vs. some professions/builds and a few thousand dps vs. others.

You’d think itd be simple to but a cd on taking retal dmg, even 1/2 second would be great….

Flamethrower is really bad for this too. Retaliation can absolutely destroy it.

I feel like they need to change how retaliation works because it’s overly punishing on people that use multi-hit attacks despite the total damage of those attacks. In contrast, you could have (hypothetically) a single attack that does 20k damage a hit and never need to worry about retaliation since you’re doing tons of damage with a few hits.

I’m convinced they need to change it to a %damage return formula to be fair across the board. Maybe using less attacks for more damage is supposed to be a counter, but I feel it’s just too punishing to multi-hitters for that to make any sense.

It can be punishing for people that rely on condition damage too since the target may die slower and will require more condition applications and therefore more hits with attacks.

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Boon-hate is coming, but for now Throw Mine is your best friend in combating retaliation. Remember that the tool-belt skill also removes boons, as well.

I’m pretty sure they removed the effect from tool belt skill mines

Penguin.5197:

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Boon-hate is coming, but for now Throw Mine is your best friend in combating retaliation. Remember that the tool-belt skill also removes boons, as well.

I’m pretty sure they removed the effect from tool belt skill mines

I think they do remove boons… I believe the tooltip just lacks this information. I would have to test it out though as I’ve touched toss mine for maybe 5 minutes.

You have no control over which boon is removed though, I believe it depends on how they are stacked. So you can still not have any luck removing retaliation at all with the mines, especially since the tiny toolbelt ones more or less require the enemy to sit on them.

Kardiamond.6952:

You can be mindful about it, but mostly every zerg now have perma AoE retaliation from combo field and guardian.

I love this internet forum fantasy where bus vs. bus is even remotely coordinated.

It’s a 10 frames-per-second total kitten show. It’s literally just one crowd charging into another one and the larger one prevails. The smaller group either dies or preemptively runs back to their tower/keep to hold off until reinforces show up.

This is 99% of what WvW zerging is. Do you know why Jade Quarry has been #1 since as far as I can remember? Numbers. They have the largest number of dedicated WvW guilds, many of which are European. That’s it. There is no grand orchestration of skill going on. It’s just a mass of people running from one point to another and the larger mass prevails. We are “outmanned” nearly all the time except during primetime NA hours.

Yes, there are Guardians. Stand Your Ground gives Retaliation. It does not last 25 seconds. It lasts 5. Maybe 10 with Vengeful and Boon Duration runes. 10 seconds.

Not permanent.

Guardians are very good about sustaining Retaliation on themselves. But this idea propagated that a 50+ mass of people is constantly under the effect of Retaliation is so false.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Kardiamond.6952:

You can be mindful about it, but mostly every zerg now have perma AoE retaliation from combo field and guardian.

I love this internet forum fantasy where bus vs. bus is even remotely coordinated.

It’s a 10 frames-per-second total kitten show. It’s literally just one crowd charging into another one and the larger one prevails. The smaller group either dies or preemptively runs back to their tower/keep to hold off until reinforces show up.

This is 99% of what WvW zerging is.

Yes, there are Guardians. Stand Your Ground gives Retaliation. It does not last 25 seconds. It lasts 5. Maybe 10 with Vengeful and Boon Duration runes. 10 seconds.

Not permanent.

Guardians are very good about sustaining Retaliation on themselves. But this idea propagated that a 50+ mass of people is constantly under the effect of Retaliation is so false.

No, zergs don’t have permanent retaliation. The issue is that it’s just kind of a damage add boon that’s just kind of there. Guardians use aegis when they want to mitigate a telegraphed burst. Retal is just kind of there.

If there’s kind of a general “thorns” damage add that’s okay, but it shouldn’t be so much more powerful vs. fast attacks than vs. slow attacks. If it’s meant to be a “counter” to fast attacks, it should be something that you trigger at a specific time to counter a specific burst.

These are all relatively minor issues, of course, and yes, most of zerg battles in WvW depend on which one is bigger. We’re just the type of people looking for ways to make things better, improve a system, troubleshoot. You know, engineers.

Wow, well now I know to spam my elixir b if a grenade engi turns up.

I think you should look at the post I quoted before you identify what the real issue is.

And Aegis blocks one attack. Not effective at all against Flame Jet.

Phineas Poe.3018:

And Aegis blocks one attack. Not effective at all against Flame Jet.

That was my point. It’s a counter to a single large attack. Retal was maybe intended to be a counter to fast attacks? Except it’s functionally a damage add, that’s just super effective vs. a few specific attacks.

NevirSayDie.6235:

That was my point. It’s a counter to a single large attack. Retal was maybe intended to be a counter to fast attacks? Except it’s functionally a damage add, that’s just super effective vs. a few specific attacks.

I see Retaliation on my Guardian the same way as I see Confusion with my Engineer. It’s just a way to watch people kill themselves without me doing anything.

I don’t see the problem with this. If they want to change it to where it is dependent on the damage of the attack received, I’d be fine with that. But I think it’s fine as it is now too. Sorry.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Kardiamond.6952:

You can be mindful about it, but mostly every zerg now have perma AoE retaliation from combo field and guardian.

I love this internet forum fantasy where bus vs. bus is even remotely coordinated.

It’s a 10 frames-per-second total kitten show. It’s literally just one crowd charging into another one and the larger one prevails. The smaller group either dies or preemptively runs back to their tower/keep to hold off until reinforces show up.

This is 99% of what WvW zerging is. Do you know why Jade Quarry has been #1 since as far as I can remember? Numbers. They have the largest number of dedicated WvW guilds, many of which are European. That’s it. There is no grand orchestration of skill going on. It’s just a mass of people running from one point to another and the larger mass prevails. We are “outmanned” nearly all the time except during primetime NA hours.

Yes, there are Guardians. Stand Your Ground gives Retaliation. It does not last 25 seconds. It lasts 5. Maybe 10 with Vengeful and Boon Duration runes. 10 seconds.

Not permanent.

Guardians are very good about sustaining Retaliation on themselves. But this idea propagated that a 50+ mass of people is constantly under the effect of Retaliation is so false.

Stand your ground, symbol of wrath, blast finishers into light fields. The latter is the biggest one, if people actually did it. All it takes is one thief and one guard and suddenly two grenades kills the engi.

But yes, I agree that zergs are brainless masses of idiots. Most don’t even know what retal is, let alone how to stack it. But for an engi all it takes is just one guardian who pops stand your ground and all dudes within 600 range will instagib him from retal.

Phineas Poe.3018:

NevirSayDie.6235:

That was my point. It’s a counter to a single large attack. Retal was maybe intended to be a counter to fast attacks? Except it’s functionally a damage add, that’s just super effective vs. a few specific attacks.

I see Retaliation on my Guardian the same way as I see Confusion with my Engineer. It’s just a way to watch people kill themselves without me doing anything.

I don’t see the problem with this. If they want to change it to where it is dependent on the damage of the attack received, I’d be fine with that. But I think it’s fine as it is now too. Sorry.

I think the problem is that the rewards for having multiple attacks are too little in comparison to the damage that you take from retal. It comes down to reduced efficacy of blinds/aegis vs damage received from retal. The benefits are far worse than the punishment.

It’s a toss up. But it needs to be considered in the grand scheme of things. Of all the multi-hit attacks out there they vary so greatly in damage, AoE and general use that it’s clear that a-net probably never even factored it in balance.

well, this is a double edged sword for us, because we engies can have pretty high uptimes on retaliation.
it could use some fine tuning sure, I don’t use grenade kit often but I’ve experienced the same when shooting p1 from towers, getting 2k+ damage on me per shot. It could probably use a cap on how many hits you can get from retaliation per second (or per skill) but I’m not really sure about it.

I think Engineers just have it bad against Retaliation because we have multi-projectile AoEs and fast-hitting channel AoEs, which just means retaliation damage x number of hits. Plus piercing shots for both pistols and rifles, more aoes.

From what it looks like, Engineers are mostly AoEs, so we’re a tiny bit screwed against groups with retalition.

I die to Retaliation more than literally ANYTHING else in SPvP, even though I am mindful about who I am hitting, what they have up buff-wise, and when I time my attack (in WvW I mostly die to the infamous OMG THERE’S SO MANY OF THEM attack that zergs find so effective.) Still, when you have ‘nades or bouncing static discharge AoE going all over the place, it’s difficult if not impossible to avoid some Retal hits in some cases. I think I hate Retaliation more than anything else, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s “broken.” Just because something kills you doesn’t mean it’s not working as intended.

As far as smaller groups are concerned, you need to know when to hold back just as much as you need to know when to attack. As far as WvW zerging is concerned, all you can do is STOP lobbing grenades for a second when you see that it is taking huge bites out of you, and hope for the best.

All this sounds like retaliation is working as intended. Yes, retaliation is a boon that can be nasty against AoE heavy and multi-hitting classes, and it can also be useless against classes that attack slowly but hit higher amounts. For anyone using retaliation it is really a gamble as to whether it will do anything or not.

I think the counter balance was supposed to be that multi hitting attacks allow procs to go off more often, but the change that added internal cooldowns to all of them really ruined that. Grenade Engineers get Shrapnel, which is the closest thing to how a proc should work IMO. But with something like Sigil of Superior Earth, that 2 second cooldown is… what, 45 attacks from a grenade engineer against a zerg in WvW? Out of those 45 attacks, one of them gets a 5 second bleed… not really worth it, is it?

IMO, they should either change how the sigil procs work, or add new sigils that work differently. Something that has a low chance to occur for each attack, but doesn’t have an internal cooldown. That way rapid AoE attacks get something to call their own that makes rapid AoEs dangerous, while players who only have slower single target attacks can get a sigil with a proc effect as well.

Giving retaliation counters is a good idea. Or just reduce the duration by 0.5 seconds for every hit.

Some people in this thread are confusing retaliation with reflection. High damage builds do not take extra retaliation because it has nothing to do with how hard you hit — it’s how FAST you hit. Each hit of retal is a fixed amount of damage, once per hit. You can kill yourself in two bursts of flamethrower against a full group running retaliation regardless of how little damage you do.

The direct counter to retaliation is boon removal, which engineers don’t really have (the mine does it but the mine sucks and has a lengthy cooldown whereas a Guardian is reapplying retaliation usually on a second-by-second basis). The next best counter for retaliation is really high damage hits — which is another thing engineers suck at.

Really we have no effective counter to retaliation. Condition builds won’t work either because retal also hits condition ticks. I’ve flamethrown against a door in WvW, backed off and still died because all the people ticking bleed (from traits) and fire ends up downing me on the retal.

Basically when I encounter a lot of retaliation I back off because there’s nothing I can do about it except hope some necro deals with it.

Phineas Poe.3018:

NevirSayDie.6235:

That was my point. It’s a counter to a single large attack. Retal was maybe intended to be a counter to fast attacks? Except it’s functionally a damage add, that’s just super effective vs. a few specific attacks.

I see Retaliation on my Guardian the same way as I see Confusion with my Engineer. It’s just a way to watch people kill themselves without me doing anything.

I don’t see the problem with this. If they want to change it to where it is dependent on the damage of the attack received, I’d be fine with that. But I think it’s fine as it is now too. Sorry.

And yet when I land confusion on an elementalist in tornado, it kills them very quickly because tornado procs confusion three times every second. It’s not that confusion is too strong, it’s that an odd mechanic makes it instant death in certain situations.

Basically the extreme situations need to be curbed. Tornado is another example where it’s a bit excessive. Perhaps Confusion and Retaliation need some sort of limit per second.

I personally don’t think that it needs a limit per second or a scale dependent on the amount of damage you actually do. I just think it would be wise for them to take into consideration how multi-hit attacks work and balance it that way.

But at this point it’s probably too much to ask, so the best stop-gap solution would probably be scaling based on how much damage an attack does. If I throw one grenade barrage on a mesmer as HgH condis and it hits for 3k I’ll take 8x more damage than a thief hitting that same mesmer for 9k with backstab.

Again, the benefits (aegis/blind “immunity”) are far worse than the risks. I guess I should also add that the recent patch seems to have changed the death log a bit. Whenever I die in a team fight retal is at the top when there’s a guardian there. Tough times.

NevirSayDie.6235:

It’s not that confusion is too strong, it’s that an odd mechanic makes it instant death in certain situations.

Replace “confusion” with “retaliation” and you’ll begin to understand why I don’t think anything needs to be changed.

Zerg stupidity is epic, but it doesn’t take but 3-4 people to intelligently stack retal in groups. You do have those people in zergs. A lot of times they purposefully do it so the stupid people that charge forth actually cause some damage to folks rather than just charging in and dying.

Retaliation is intelligently used in specific situations. I’ve seen it time and again as an FT user. A lot of players will stack retal before storming a tower, keep, or garrison. Some will pop it as soon as they see a flame plume, a grenade barrage, or an Arrow Cart.

Phineas Poe.3018:

NevirSayDie.6235:

It’s not that confusion is too strong, it’s that an odd mechanic makes it instant death in certain situations.

Replace “confusion” with “retaliation” and you’ll begin to understand why I don’t think anything needs to be changed.

Just because it’s strong in certain situations does not mean that the benefits of having multi-hit attacks outweigh the risks. Confusion is substantially different in that players who quickly cast abilities take more damage, a more balanced and less nuanced problem than retal.

The question is would it be better for us if flame jet/grenades were only one hit versus 10/3? And if so, would it be balanced? I think the answer is yes. Multi hit attacks are unnecessarily punished; they don’t take more retal on the basis of the strengths of the abilities but on A-nets plain ol’ balancing ignorance.

Would grenades be overpowered if we only took 1 hit from retal? If the answer is no then why do we take the most retaliation damage of any class in the game?

Ostricheggs.3742:

Confusion is substantially different in that players who quickly cast abilities take more damage, a more balanced and less nuanced problem than retal.

How so? Confusion hits for 2.5K damage easily with Pry Bar or Concussion Bomb and with Condition Duration food can make peoples’ lives a total nightmare. They literally cannot do anything for ten seconds when paired with Static Shot. Many classes can’t even dodge, including us, because of on-dodge proc effects.

Retaliation comparatively hits for 200-400 damage depending on the Guardian’s Power and can be easily avoided. Just don’t attack.

It really is that simple.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Just because it’s strong in certain situations does not mean that the benefits of having multi-hit attacks outweigh the risks.

That is your opinion. If you do not like using the Flamethrower in WvW because you’re afraid of Retaliation, then don’t use it.

Ostricheggs.3742:

The question is would it be better for us if flame jet/grenades were only one hit versus 10/3? And if so, would it be balanced? I think the answer is yes.

Flame Jet’s 10 attacks is the one thing that makes the Flamethrower worth wielding in WvW. Taking that away would not only destroy its capacity to sweep an entire crowd of people and collect badges like crazy, but would affect how it works with certain sigils like Strength and Earth.

This is a terrible idea and would affect the kit’s viability in PvE.

Ostricheggs.3742:

Whenever I die in a team fight retal is at the top when there’s a guardian there. Tough times.

You were hit by it 52 times and it still only did 12K damage.

Still do not see the issue here.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Whenever I die in a team fight retal is at the top when there’s a guardian there. Tough times.

You were hit by it 52 times and it still only did 12K damage.

Still do not see the issue here.

The issue is that in a very long teamfight he practically never got hit. Those 52 hits would have come in a few seconds if he placed his grenade barrage on a few people/pets. Retal was likely not up the entire time, just randomly off and on throughout the fight from people unintentionally using finishers in the guard’s light fields.

ikiturso.4026:

Solution for this would be nerfing grenade kits damage so it wont hurt engineer so bad.

in case you din’t know Retaliation has its own damage based off the Target’s power so even if you did 1 damage you’d still take big damage if your target has decent power.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Whenever I die in a team fight retal is at the top when there’s a guardian there. Tough times.

You were hit by it 52 times and it still only did 12K damage.

Still do not see the issue here.

The issue is that in a very long teamfight he practically never got hit. Those 52 hits would have come in a few seconds if he placed his grenade barrage on a few people/pets. Retal was likely not up the entire time, just randomly off and on throughout the fight from people unintentionally using finishers in the guard’s light fields.

So then maybe don’t Grenade Barrage a group of people in sPvP when they have Retaliation up? You can easily target them and see what buffs they have on.

I thought the conversation here was about WvW anyway. sPvP is a totally different beast and is played completely differently.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Retaliation comparatively hits for 200-400 damage depending on the Guardian’s Power and can be easily avoided. Just don’t attack.

It really is that simple.

And what are your enemies doing while you are busy not attacking them?

You plan to beat them how, exactly?

Going to protect the point with harsh language? Get them off of the door by wishing they would go away?

“Don’t attack” is not a remotely reasonable solution to the retaliation problem.

It really is that simple.

TL;DR
I don’t get how people think that if some setup suffer most from some effect (here: GK/FT from retalation) it should not be like this?
The games with good ‘counters’ do usually look more balanced and interesting than those where everyone is a bit of that and a bit of this.

Take as example a confusion and a thief. It is a very similar situation. And it’s good that some setups counter some.

Well, you just can’t bring GK/FT to 3w ZvZ. Is it really that bad? Are you really necessary with those in 3w? Don’t they (your zerg) have enough damage?
I’d say control bombs + EG fields would be more appreciated by the zerg, for example.

Slamz.5376:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Retaliation comparatively hits for 200-400 damage depending on the Guardian’s Power and can be easily avoided. Just don’t attack.

It really is that simple.

And what are your enemies doing while you are busy not attacking them?

You plan to beat them how, exactly?

Going to protect the point with harsh language? Get them off of the door by wishing they would go away?

“Don’t attack” is not a remotely reasonable solution to the retaliation problem.

It really is that simple.

Replace confusion with retaliation, and you’ll see what I mean. Not only can you not attack with massive stacks of confusion, you can’t do anything without taking massive damage. Heal? Oh, snap, confusion. Pop retal? Oh, snap, confusion. DODGE? Oh, snap, I have an ability proc on dodge, confusion damage.

Compared to when someone has retaliation…you hit them with a single, high damage, attack…how hard is this?

You want certain kits that are countered with retal to work against retal…that’s like asking scissors to beat rock because you thought it was unfair your brother beat you with it to get the last 5 cookies in the jar…please don’t act so entitled lol.

Slamz.5376:

Going to protect the point with harsh language? Get them off of the door by wishing they would go away?

Or just use something that doesn’t proc Retaliation as badly as the Flamethrower or Grenade Kit does? Use your Rifle or Pistol. Use Magnetic Shield and push them out of the point. Use Air Blast. Use Smoke Vent.

Use your head.

bromi.7809:

TL;DR
I don’t get how people think that if some setup suffer most from some effect (here: GK/FT from retalation) it should not be like this?
The games with good ‘counters’ do usually look more balanced and interesting than those where everyone is a bit of that and a bit of this.

Take as example a confusion and a thief. It is a very similar situation. And it’s good that some setups counter some.

Well, you just can’t bring GK/FT to 3w ZvZ. Is it really that bad? Are you really necessary with those in 3w? Don’t they (your zerg) have enough damage?
I’d say control bombs + EG fields would be more appreciated by the zerg, for example.

Retal can simply be over the top on engis, especially out in WvW. It’s severely underestimated because engineers get the shortest stick.

And calling for balance isn’t anything new. It should be taken into consideration is all, and in my opinion it clearly hasn’t. No one seems to have ever discussed it, what it means and how it effects us. Now that the combat log has been fixed it’s almost ALWAYS on my top damage taken when I die, even in tourneys.

Also, a thief with confusion doesn’t have it any worse than any other class hit with confusion. The engineer has it the worst as far as retal goes by a MILE. The only thing that compares to the number of attacks nades put out is a thief spamming cluster bomb in melee range, but a smart one can choose to take the reduced damage from the normal hit and take a third as much retal. Even then that’s only in melee range.

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Boon-hate is coming, but for now Throw Mine is your best friend in combating retaliation. Remember that the tool-belt skill also removes boons, as well.

Useless because it’s not consistent. It removes 1 boons, retal might not be the top of the stack. Some classes also have low recharge on retal (certain guardian and mesmer builds in particular).

Phineas Poe.3018:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Confusion is substantially different in that players who quickly cast abilities take more damage, a more balanced and less nuanced problem than retal.

How so? Confusion hits for 2.5K damage easily with Pry Bar or Concussion Bomb and with Condition Duration food can make peoples’ lives a total nightmare. They literally cannot do anything for ten seconds when paired with Static Shot.

Pry Bar and Concussion bomb are melee ranged. But a mesmer really hurts. However there’s a big difference between confusion and retal. Confusion is a condition. There’s a lot more condition removal in the game than there is boon removal. In particular there’s a lot more AoE, multi-stack removal in the game than there is this kind of Boon removal.

Retal is a boon and it procs multiple times on abilities like range Longbow and warrior rifle, thief pistol volleys and on grenade kits and flamethrower. You apply it to yourself and it scales with the number of attackers hitting you. You apply it to allies in proximity and it scales with that too. Any boon removal must remove cover boons first and most importantly, the enemy must land the boon removal on you.

Confusion on the other hand, scales in stacks and thus in damage. But it requires you to land the ability that applies the confusion to the enemy (which in case of melee range abilities, means being next to the enemy). AoE variants are subject to aoe targets hit limit. It can be easily cleaned by even if convered by other conditions. Removing conditions doesn’t require landing an ability on the enemy in most cases. There’s also runes that shorten condition duration.

Most tryhard WvW guilds run warriors who remove conditions on shouts and eles who remove conditions, necros with condition removing well. People bring their own condition removal too. Boon removal is very sparse in contrast. You’ve got Null Field mesmers who need to land that on the enemy and the enemy can simply dodge out of it (removes 1 boon per second) and shatter mesmers who remove boons (good luck getting your clones up to enemy faces) and some necros.

Big difference. Confusion isn’t nearly as much of a problem as retal is.

ManCaptain.3154:

Boon removal is very sparse in contrast.

I think this is one of the reasons why the idea of “boon hate” has been thrown around.